How to Draw Power from Your Reality, Right Now

In the School of Life Design group, Lynn asked "What are your mantras/tricks for staying in the moment and not freaking out (about uncertainty, especially)?" Halcyon responded with, "Byron Katie has a great phrase about not getting too caught up in an imagined story: Remind yourself of what is real by saying, "Woman sitting in chair." Everything else is story (aka just thoughts)."

I was able to find reference to this idea in Katie's book online, but my imagination took the idea and ran away with it, so I left it alone for a day or so.

Last night Kelly and I were lounging in bed, when she brought up something in the future that may or may not happen, but that we both want to happen. She said something to the effect of "We get to meet those people this week!" We've been practicing not speaking about things outside of the Now, so I replied with "Ok... here is my reply... I don't care. I'm in the Now." She didn't get offended, because she knows it's for the best to stay in the Now too.

We chilled for a minute, not saying anything, which turned into some quality cuddling. Being in the Now FTW! The next thing Kelly said to me was, "Girl lying in bed with her hand between another girl's legs. Hey, that's pretty awesome!" By choosing to stay in the Now and focus only on what was going on in the present moment, Kelly found herself receiving something that she had previously wanted and was trying to obtain by thinking about the future: human connection.

Being in the Now as an artform

I spent much of today directing my thoughts by describing to myself only what I was doing in the Now. "Girl driving a new car listening to Nicki Minaj on full blast. Girl peeing while looking at the sun filter through the trees. Girl taking photographs for UCllc." On that last one, I actually heard my mind respond with, "Hey, I want to do that!"

WTF? By describing my Now reality to myself, I succeeded in making my mind want to be in the Now. After working at UCllc for over 6 months, I've become something of a staff photographer. I'm pretty used to it, definitely good at it, and you could say I nearly take it for granted now. But if you would have told me about someone else being their staff photographer a year ago, I definitely would have felt jealous of that person, and coveted the position.

Not only did this little trick make my mind want to join the Now, but the description "Girl peeing while looking at the sun filter through the trees" made me feel like I was living in a painting. Suddenly, I understood how painters could paint such mundane scenes. In the Now, nothing is mundane. Everything is magickal.

Being in the Now is power

When we meditated today, I began by thinking "Girl meditating." I immediately started enjoying myself, thinking about how great it was that I meditate every day. As the meditation continued, I remembered the reason why I started meditating in the first place.

When I was 15 or so, I attended Catholic high school. You could say my parents "made me" go there. I sure as hell wasn't about to buy into all the garbage that came with Catholicism, so I very actively sought out other belief systems that might make more sense. Fortunately, all the heavy metal, goth music and horror movies I was into lead me to the occult.

I dabbled in Satanism, Wicca, and plain ol' magick. In one of my readings, I came across a spell that, when combined with meditation, would get me anything I wanted. As you might imagine, my 15-year-old self had a lot of burning desires and the idea that I could just sit still and get what I wanted was rather compelling.

So I started meditating every night, focusing on making my desires reality. I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about my practice, I just sort of trusted it. And it always, always worked.

As I meditated today, I remembered again my teenage self gathering so much power from meditation. Deciding to bring that bitch back, I looked for a specific desire to focus on to make it come true. But now that I know what I know, my only real desires are to feel good and live in flow.

I realized that this "describing what I'm doing in the Now" practice is a way to live in flow, and that the more I do it, the more power I draw to myself. Every single time I stop to observe "girl typing article on keyboard" I get a surge of well being and knowing, and I feel like I'm charging up.

I look at this method of being in the Now like casting a spell on my life. The more time I spend in the present moment, appreciating the beauty and perfection of what I'm doing right now, the more power I draw to myself. The more magickal the events in my life become. The more I feel like smiling. The more things go my way. The more confident I feel. I am a girl typing an article on a computer. I wanted this.

Wow this was exactly what I needed! I remember seeing that conversation on fb and briefly thinking ‘cool, but “woman sitting in chair” is not exactly inspiring’. I had totally not gotten it. Thank you so much for elaborating on this so wonderfully and I’m seriously going to try to use this from now on to center my constantly wandering thoughts!